I was getting ready to go out to dinner with Sjef, Anky, the family and some great folks from Australia, Sweden and the UK and Picollo was just too cute so I snapped this shot. It’s blurry but I love that he’s sniffing me! So cute! He’s having a great time and everyone seems to really like him here but what’s not to like about the best paralyzed dachshund on the planet?

I snapped this as I was walking past Salinero’s box. It was just too cute as he was hanging his head out chewing on some hay then I looked down and noticed all the hay outside his box window! LOL! Too cute!

I had the most amazing goat cheese salad the other afternoon. The people are great and the food fabulous! Yum!

I just thought this was too neat. This brings a whole new meaning to road work when you’re talking about cobblestone!

I am so glad I brought my Draper cooler and anti-sweat with me as I use them both daily after my ride. I’ll finish my cool out, untack, wash/liniment, time under the solarium and then on to a final relaxation under the cooler with the anti-sweat holding it on in her stall! Thanks guys! I have to say I love using the wraps overnight as well! Please, please consider making a sports bra from the holofiber technology!

A colleague/friend here in The Netherlands had his first PSG in Europe (having show previously and extensively in Australia) yesterday afternoon near the border of Belgium and The Netherlands. I was very excited to come and support and just spend time with some fun people and had to explain myself when I mentioned I would “come and be a good cockroach” for him.

When I competed about 4 years ago in Washington state with my first Grand Prix a super nice lady at the barn said she would come and watch. I told her it will likely not be that great as I was just hoping I could pull off the 15 one tempis and not completely screw up my passage to piaffe transitions. She quickly told me a great story about a research piece she’d read and I’ll share it with you guys here. She stated the article said that two test sets of cockroaches were given tasks to complete. One set was left to do their tasks solo and the other set had an audience of other cockroaches. It seemed the cockroaches with the audience watching performed their tasks better than the ones without the audience and there in is the cockroach theory that I’ve been using since! Thanks Karen!!

It seems that Geoff had quite a few cockroaches there supporting him in his ride and it was a very smooth first ride out showing this great gelding (PS – I think the sweetie might be for sale?!). Here’s a nice photo of Geoff and Olympic after their ride! A very nice pair that can only go up from here!